[Written shortly after the Yankees swept the Red Sox]
Nothing fastballs, hanging curves, flat sliders, maddening walks, cheap hits, big bombs, did I mention walks?
Frail swings, meek grounders, zero cohesion, dead sox.
Imminently questionable, utterly inconsolable, thy name is Tito.
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Here, for your reading pleasure, are five observations gleamed from Armageddon. Shards of insight from a diehard Yankee fan, temporarily unburdened from this media fed beast known as Yankees-Red Sox.Shakespearean tragedies often follow a Five Act structure. As the arc of each epic winds toward its finale, the inherent futility of what we hold closest to our hearts is painfully revealed as an illusion. The dream reverses into a nightmare, love mutates to hate.
Five games. Five acts.
Right now, Red Sox fans could find truth in Shakespearean sentiment, a parallel to their current vapid reality.
Yankee fans, for at least another month, are free to bask in the belief that Shakespeare sucks.
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1. What the hell was Francona thinking? Part I
Terry Francona is often unfairly maligned by Red Sox followers, dutifully serving the purpose of managers past and present who dare to scale the Monster: To be pulverized, poked and prodded by a dangerously curious “Nation”. It is a New Englander’s apparent nature to second-guess anyone in the relative vicinity of control, any hand that shapes his obsession. Be it the manager, the front office, or the players, all are directed under an unflinching microscope of unyielding focus.
However, if there is one man who deserves even a slight benefit of the doubt, it’s Terry Francona, the field general who oversaw Baseball History. It appears that the denizens of Boston simply become desperate in their quest to impart the slightest sliver of their emotional pain, in most cases eventually saddling it upon Francona.
Why not?
What fans don’t routinely call for the head of their home team’s manager, especially as they see him sitting on the bench, belly nearly overflowing out of his uniform, a wad of tobacco precariously hanging from his mouth, sporting a serene expression as yet another botched hit and run destroys a potentially big inning?
Hell, attacking the manager only seems logical. After all, somebody needs to be held accountable. Somebody needs to be burnt at the stake.
And even the staunchest Francona apologist would have to take stock after witnessing the confluence of events that doomed the Red Sox this past Sunday Night.
Desperation should have driven the Red Sox agenda. Their ace was on the mound. The stopper was well rested. A series could be salvaged, a season could be saved, and most importantly, a message could be sent.
Instead, in a must win situation, Terry played for tomorrow. In what could be best described as an exhibition of unadulterated insanity, Francona passed on using a completely rested John Papelbon for an invaluable two frame save, instead rolling the dice with Mike Timlin.
He crapped out.
Timlin, who has clearly seen his better days arrive and pass in a whirlwind of commendable dependability and clutch performances, promptly allowed two base runners, setting the stage for a Yankee comeback, and for the nail to be driven into Boston’s coffin.
2. What the hell was Francona thinking? Part II
The singular decision to pitch Mike Timlin with everything on the line should be isolated from the stupidity in its immediate aftermath. For, Papelbon’s entrance into the game would again be blocked again, this time by Javier Lopez. The side winding lefty specialist carried an atrocious set of numbers into the postseason heated competition, including an embarrassing batting average against that almost appeared an optical illusion.
It’s a two run lead. It’s a huge game. Remember, Papelbon is locked and loaded. He hasn’t pitched for two solid days.
The Lopez move became even more confounding when he walked Bobby Abreu to load the bases. With Jason Giambi coming to bat, the sanctity of consistency demanded that Lopez remain in the game to face consecutive lefthanders. Because if Tito believed Lopez could retire Abreu, he was obligated to believe Lopez could retire Giambi; for Bobby was the better hitter through the course of the series.
Lopez’s dismissal from the game merely illustrated the putridity of Francona’s plan. If indeed Terry intended for Lopez to square off solely against Abreu, why bring him in anyway? Why not just insert Papelbon, the team’s best pitcher this year, instead of pointlessly delaying the inevitable?
Logic had apparently dissolved within the Red Sox dugout. Francona’s moves set the stage for Papelbon to throw over thirty high stress pitches, a feat curtailing his valiant effort for a miraculous escape, and save. Papelbon would allow one inherited run to score in the eighth, and a patented Derek Jeter dying quail to right in the ninth resulted in the cruelest blown saves.
What the hell was Francona thinking?
3. Yankees diversify attack, while Red Sox remain stagnant.
In the recent past, one could easily argue that the Red Sox’s bounty of hitters had surpassed the Yankees’ collection in equal measure of talent and guts. However, while New York improved their offense in 2006, the Red Sox have regressed, and in their regression they have found stagnancy, injuries and ineffectiveness robbing them of their previous levels of speed and power. All it takes is one look at the stat sheet, or limited frills assessment:
The Red Sox can still hit, but not as well as they used to. The Yankees can still hit, but now they can run, they can bunt, and can they ever walk. They have improved, they have become more balanced, all the pieces fitting, all the cogs in their vicious machine churning in synchronized fluidity.
The Red Sox have become overly aggressive, their decline symbolized by Coco Crisp, practically beating himself at the plate.
The Yankees have morphed, turning ruthlessly opportunistic. They allow the opposition to beat itself, playing their own game.
4. Bullpen proves Epstein’s Ineptitude
Theo Epstein can rail into infinity about his long term plan, his refusal to panic, he can whine that the Red Sox aren’t the Yankees, he can argue for the fan’s patience while they gorge on the highest ticket prices in Baseball.
But what he can’t possibly explain away is the conspicuous void of left handed relief, remarkably M.I.A. in the series before Sunday night.
While the waiver wire overflows with serviceable options, Epstein doesn’t do a thing. Worse yet, he demotes Craig Breslow, a talented young lefthander, back to the minor leagues before the series starts. Just as Francona’s lapse in competence was staggering, so was Epstein’s, and it cannot be explained away by empty rhetoric. If it is all about the kids now, the jewels of the Red Sox’s system, why wasn’t Breslow in the Major Leagues for the start of this series?
This isn’t an agenda repressing the Red Sox. It is faulty management by a front office becoming increasingly exposed, and rightfully scrutinized.
5. It isn’t over…
But it’s close. Observing the Red Sox during this Series, it would be deliciously easy to overreact and pronounce them dead. However, reason holds that they have the hitting to pound mediocre pitching, and if David Wells and Curt Schilling can somehow stabilize the rotation, a run isn’t totally out of the question. Whether they make the playoffs or not is a mystery, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that the days of the Boston Red Sox being a feared, top flight American League team have come to a sudden end, at least in 2006.
The Red Sox were run over by a Money Train.
– Matt Waters
